Wind synthesis and quality control of multiple-doppler-derived horizontal wind fields

Abstract

Horizontal wind vector fields can be measured in real time by a bistatic Doppler radar network and can be applied directly for hazard warnings and weather surveillance. Most applications, however, especially for meteorological research and operational meteorology, require quality-controlled wind fields. Therefore, a quality-control scheme is developed that includes algorithms to determine the data quality. The algorithms are applied through a decision criterion, and the quality of wind measurement is weighted with values ranging from 1 to 0. The results of each weighting algorithm are merged to an average quality index field, which represents the confidence of each horizontal wind measurement. This averaged field is available together with the measured horizontal wind vector field for further applications. This idea is applicable for all kinds of spatial wind field measurements and is applied in the paper for horizontal wind fields measured for monostatic dual- and bistatic dual- and/or multiple-Doppler radar measurements. Wind synthesis and quality control of three-dimensional wind fields are presented for two frontal passages with stratiform precipitation and for a convective situation. © 2004 American Meteorological Society.